Lewiston Fire Chief Paul LeClair told News 8 that one of the buildings had actually been condemned, but despite that some people were still living there.

A giant backhoe was brought in on Tuesday to tear down 105 Blake St. When it caught fire on Monday, it quickly spread to two other buildings. Nobody was seriously hurt, but residents stood and watched as their homes burned.

"Everybody sort of knows each other and it was just scary just seeing how fast it went," said Pat Gardiner.

Eight investigators from the fire marshal's office were on scene on Tuesday. They took pictures and gathered what evidence they could. The buildings were not safe to enter so two of them were demolished.

"There's a great deal of speculation with regard to the cause and we just want to officially say it remains under investigation. We haven't made any determinations and we want to be certain when we do make that public that we're well-grounded and it's backed up with fact," said LeClair.

Witnesses said they heard explosions, but the chief said people shouldn't read too much into that.

"It's not uncommon when there's a fire of that magnitude to hear those types of noises, explosions, glass breaking," said LeClair.

An investigator with the fire marshal's office said with today's codes, new construction of this type of apartment building would require a sprinkler system, but the chief said it's still to be determined if this building even had working smoke detectors.

"All multi-unit properties in the state of Maine are required to have smoke detectors. If you have tenants part of our enforcement effort is to ensure that these buildings do have smoke detectors so we can't comment on the status of that building. It was certainly a building -- I'll call in transition. It had been condemned and it was in the process of being vacated," he said.

Investigators are interviewing people about the fire.

Stay with WMTW News 8 for developments on this story.

Aftermath: Lewiston fire leaves 75 homeless

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Norm Karkos

The Red Cross continues to help out the 75 people left homeless by Monday's massive fire in Lewiston.